


Pendulum

by LizRambler



Series: Sleepovers [7]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-28
Updated: 2019-11-28
Packaged: 2021-02-18 07:20:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21590635
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LizRambler/pseuds/LizRambler
Summary: After the Satan Pit, our heroes have some downtime.
Relationships: Tenth Doctor/Rose Tyler
Series: Sleepovers [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1531835
Comments: 13
Kudos: 81





	Pendulum

Rose unzipped and peeled off her magenta jacket. Two days in the same clothes with all the stress sweat and the fear left her feeling greasy. The Doctor had been fiddling with the controls, still messing about with his spacesuit and cooing at the Tardis. Rose understood. Being separated from the Tardis had been terribly upsetting for both of them. She was their home. She had been the Doctor’s home for hundreds of years and also, she was a lovely old friend. Rose reached out a hand and touched the coral wall giving it a gentle stroke. A pulse of warmth radiated back to her with a little hint of that discomfort she had felt when trying to avoid landing them on the space station. “When will we learn to listen to you?” Rose asked the ship.

The shower came on. “Right, that’s me taking the hint. Rose Tyler is smelly.”

She shucked the rest of her clothes, tossing them vaguely in the direction of the hamper. Her muscles felt a bit tight from the tension. Her mind was still turning over the idea that no matter what the Doctor said that the Beast might not have lied. Fear left her cold and shivering, naked in her room. Shaking it off, she stepped into the bathroom. The steam staved off the cold, if not the reason for it and Rose stepped under the spray. “Oh, that’s gorgeous, thanks,” she moaned, in gratitude to the Tardis. The hot water was lovely and the muck was sluiced away.

Rose took her time scrubbing her skin pink and washing her hair twice. She might die in battle soon but at least she would have clean hair. Turning around, she let the water just warm her inside and out. Maybe the Doctor was right. Maybe the Beast lied. And even if it didn’t, at least she was going down fighting. Suited her fine. 

Shaking it off, Rose stepped out of the shower and dried off with a fluffy marshmallow peep pink towel. She dressed in her softest pajamas which had been placed on the bench near the shower, not by her. The fabric was heaven! It was clean and smelled like fresh laundry detergent instead of stale air and sweat. She hummed happily as she toweled her hair dry, not wanting to bother with a hairdryer or anything else, well except her teeth.

Rose popped the door open in time to see the Doctor enter her room. They stopped long enough to beam at one another. It had been a long time since it had stopped being weird to see him here in her room. “You’re not tired already, are you?” Rose teased. 

Timelords didn’t need to sleep for days on end. He had been sleeping not too long ago. The Doctor wouldn’t need a nap for another week yet here he was in a fresh cotton tee and silky striped blue pajama bottoms as if he were in his own room. He jumped into her bed and took up his side with arms behind his head. “Thought you might need company after…” He waved his hand around encompassing the last two days of terror. “If not,” he said, “I can go back to telling the Tardis what a beautiful girl she is.”

“And if you stay, will you tell me what a beautiful girl I am?” 

His bright eyes sparkled a bit. “Can’t.”

“Can’t?” Rose asked as she made a show of finishing up with her hair.

“Won’t. You’ll get a big head. Then you won’t be able to fit through doors and if you can’t fit through doors your adventuring days will, sadly, be over,” he finished with a mournful once over that told her all she needed to know about her looks. Especially when that once over lingered in certain areas.

“Can’t have that. Who will stroke your ego?” she teased and collapsed onto the bed beside him on her side.

“Mm,” he agreed and grabbed her hand. “Someone’s got to tell me how amazing I am or it doesn’t count.”

“If the Doctor saves the universe on his own, does it even count?” Rose ran her thumb over the cool skin of his wrist. She wasn’t fooled. He was the one who needed company. Oh, he’d never ask but he didn’t have to ask her. He squeezed back in appreciation.

He clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth thinking. “Oh, the universe would have to just fall apart. I could never keep rescuing everyone if you weren’t there to shout. ‘Oh, well done, Doctor!’ Shame, it was such a lovely universe too.” He rolled his eyes to look at her, a smirk on his handsome face.

“Is that what I do?” Rose asked, arching a brow.

He sighed, “No. Would it kill you to do it one time? Instead of, ‘no Doctor, stop sticking your fingers in the jam.’ or ‘Oh my God, Doctor, don’t lick that!’” His impression of her was melodramatic and terribly on point.

“I so don’t sound like that! And what about you? You’re all like, ‘Rose did you have to rescue everyone while I was tripping over my undone shoelaces?’ or ‘Rose, I forgot to tell you they hate women here, wear this codpiece.’” Rose’s impression of the Doctor was perfection.

“No, no, no, don’t do that! You are brilliant at most things but not that, not impressions,” he groaned.

Rose rolled her eyes and rolled over onto her stomach. Reaching out, she placed a hand over his heart. Looking deeply into his lovely dark brown eyes, she said, “Rose Tyler, your knickers are a crime here.”

He barked out a laugh. “That is… terrible!” 

Giggling, he mussed his hair. Rose reached out and messed it more until he squawked in protest. Sometimes you had to make your Timelord laugh, so he forgot about it all for a while. It was too much responsibility for one person and they had done a good job today. He grabbed the hand in his hair and pulled her up next to him. He stared at her, mood shifting to something serious as he searched her face. “Alright, Rose?”

“Yeah,” Rose agreed, a little breathless under his scrutiny.

He pulled her into a horizontal hug. The Doctor’s long arms wrapped around her and squeezed her tightly. Rose squeaked. He buried his nose in her hair. Rose buried hers in his neck getting a hit of his scent from the source, spicy and warm. All too soon he was letting her go. 

“I’ll let you rest,” he announced. 

Rose didn’t move off of him, holding him in place. “Nope. You promised to be company for me.”

“I did,” he drawled his arms loosely wrapping around her again. He swept one hand up and down as if petting her. Not as if, he was petting her, and Rose wasn’t about to complain. If he needed to pet her to feel better, call her a house cat. Not a cat, maybe a rabbit or a wolf or something furry. If she purred would it be embarrassing?

“Rose,” the Doctor said after a minute, his tone wistful, “what do you want to do tomorrow?”

“Thought we could see my mom,” Rose said to wind him up.

“Nooooooo, no, Rose, we just saw your mum with that alien invasion TV show thing remember? She won’t even have had time to miss us yet,” he moaned, both hands now going up and down the soft fabric of her nightshirt and down and up and down, lulling her.

“A beach?” she offered, knowing full well that he hated standing still for more than a second. Timelords were definitely part dragonfly, all fluttering. 

The Doctor paused in his petting to think about it. “You may have a point there. We have been rescuing the universe an awful lot lately.”

Rose made a noise of agreement or encouragement. She was a melty puddle of goo.

“What we need is a day off.”

“What? Really? A day off?” 

“Mm-hm,” he murmured. “We could read books and go swimming. Which could be incredibly convenient since the swimming pool is in the library.” He resumed stroking her back. Rose’s skin was tingling from the attention and she tightened her grip on him. His tactile nature was really working in her favor tonight. Was he still talking? 

“Or we could explore the Tardis… Infinite rooms, nearly infinite. Gotta be something I haven’t seen yet. There’s this room on the Tardis that shows you all of your possible futures.”

“That sounds terrifying,” Rose said, shuddering afraid she’d see a thousand different deaths.

He shrugged. “S’broken anyhow. Still, interesting.”

The Doctor smiled down at her. Rose rolled her eyes at him. “Yeah alright. We can spend the day reading trashy romance novels out loud to one another while doing laps in the library pool. That’s a stupid place to keep a pool by the way.”

“It works,” the Doctor remarked. “The Tardis keeps the books from getting soggy. It’s fine. It’s a tradition.”

“Are you going to sleep here tonight?” Rose asked him, not wanting to push it but enjoying the gentle intimacy of a cuddle. The Doctor always chose when they slept in the bed together since he slept less. She had never asked. Rose wasn’t one to pressure him to do human things, although, she always slept better on nights he stayed.

He scrunched his nose up. “Not tired.”

“Oh,” she said, trying not to sound disappointed.

“Well, okay maybe…” He stopped stroking and squeezed her. “Thought we might do something to wear me out. If you want…” 

Rose flushed. “Wha-at?”

The Doctor stared hard at the ceiling and the rambling began, “I thought, and this is just a thought mind, not strictly a plan or anything you’d have to say yes to because you are your own woman and a very fine woman, you are, Rose Tyler. I was thinking, we had a discussion a while back at your mother’s… And since then I’ve been, we’ve been a bit and I thought since we were taking a day off tomorrow it wouldn’t matter how late we were up tonight, besides time is relative on the Tardis so there’s technically no night or morning so it doesn’t matter when we do… the thing that I want to… Never mind. I’ll just lie here. Very still and not talking here.” He let out an embarrassed huff.

As always the words had come out in a stream of consciousness, tumbling over one another and piling up in a confusing mess. Rose’s brain teased the meaning and her heart skipped several beats before it began galloping. Rose’s insides had caught on quicker and were on fire. A bolt of interest raced out from her brain to her extremities until her blood was singing. Was he asking her for what she thought he was? No way… She bit her lip, picturing it. He was in so few layers too, already practically unwrapped. 

“Are you talking about the discussion we had in my old bedroom in my mother’s flat where you, a Timelord, suggested doing a very human activity?” 

“Erm,” he bleated, cheeks tinged pink, “yes?”

Rose let out a shaky breath. She could not be blamed for forgetting how her lungs worked or for drooling a bit. She had to confirm it. It was too fragile an idea to be real without confirmation. The little feeling of insecurity that had grown in her since nothing had happened burned in her chest. “You never mentioned it again. S’been two weeks. Thought you might have changed your mind about the… about IT.”

“You never mentioned it again either, Rose Tyler,” he admonished.

Rose hid her head against his chest, sure he could feel her hot cheeks through the thin T-shirt he wore. “I didn’t,” she said into his chest, realizing that she could and should have. Only… he had been setting the pace. Rose had gotten used to the slow path to… to this.

“Why? Don’t you want to?” he asked the worried tone in his voice forcing her to look up and meet his gaze. His insecurity was endearing, comforting even. They were idiots, the pair of them. Rose smiled. The Doctor saw and his own smile caught fire. His eyes smoldered. Rose flushed hot then cold then hot. The smoldering look was gone in a blink, replaced again by insecurity. “It’s fine if you-you don’t want to or you changed your mind about me-erm-us. Doing--That, erm, IT. Fine. I don’t want to make you uncomfortable or do anything you wouldn’t want to say yes to… It’s very important to me that you want...”

“No, I do.” Rose mercifully cutting him off and glancing away. “Now I feel awkward.”

He was scratching at his sideburns and running his hand over his pink face. “Yes, so, so awkward. How do I--How do I make it less awkward? Un-awkward?” the Doctor asked. “This isn’t something I do or start or… Do I start? Do the males initiate on Earth? Is there a custom I should be following? Or would it be better if you--?” The Doctor had a helpless expression that made her heart go out to him.

Still, Rose could not believe she was having this conversation with the Doctor of all people. “No,” she began, trying to explain human mating customs to her alien friend erm boyfriend? “It’s either, either person can start if both want--I didn’t want to kiss you…”

“What? Oh,” he said dripping in disappointment.

She poked him. “No, don’t be stupid, of course, I did. I--it was your turn.”

His eyes lit up. “Right! We were taking turns and you… Oh! Yes, it IS my turn. So I can just...”

The Doctor’s grip loosened so he was holding her biceps. He lifted his head off of the pillow. His eyes were dark and closing as he approached. Rose felt her eyelids drop to half-mast without her control. He pressed his cool lips against hers gently before applying pressure. He backed off, tilting his head to get a better angle. Rose was electrified. He pressed in again and she kissed back gently easing him into a deeper kiss by sliding her hands into his hair and scratching against his scalp. He moaned and the kiss became all tongues and hot wet pressure. Rose lost herself to the slide of tongues, and the hints of mint in both their mouths. Getting past it to the taste of his mouth was too much. She wanted to punch the air or squeal. Rose was snogging the Doctor! And he was a good kisser. Rose’s toes were curling.

His hands slid up her back and pressed her closer to him. Rose hated to stop but she was starting to see spots. He broke the kiss to let her breathe. A happy little noise escaped him. His eyes soft as he let her take deep breaths. Her face was on fire, among other places.

“What’s next? He asked eagerly, hands roaming down to give her bum a quick squeeze.

Rose laughed. It was going to be a long night.

The next relative morning, drifting on the back of a unicorn float, hands trailing in the water, Rose listened to the Doctor read a particularly trashy book to her from the chaise that sat next to the pool. He was doing an absolutely ridiculously breathy heroine voice and a booming melodramatic voice for the hero. Rose had almost drowned during the initial sex scene, she had been laughing so hard. He was now onto the second sex scene and Rose thought her skin was going to start giving off steam. He had toned down the melodrama to drip the dialogue in innuendo instead. He was also wearing his sexy specs because he was trying to make her combust.

The Doctor paused in his reading to ask, “we didn’t do this part, should we have?”

Rose coughed, the scene had been good, very good and Rose had been imagining it... “We, ah, would you want to do that?”

He considered, turning the book upside down as if that helped the dirty book make more sense. “I think this is for purely scientific research, that this scene could be attempted against that wall,” he pointed to an open space far away from bookshelves. “You’d have to stand on tiptoe as I’m a bit taller and or oh, a box? A stack of books would be dangerous… Do I have to call it my---”

“NO! No, you don’t.” Rose stopped him. She swam over to the side of the pool so he could look down at her. He smirked. “So, not a one-time thing?” she asked, with a fake casual tone.

“No, not a one-time thing, not when we haven’t done this bit yet.” He handed her the book. Rose read the page and the water around her boiled from exposure to her skin. “Did you think I just wanted to erm, do it the one time for science?” The Doctor’s expression was earnest and curious. 

“Nah, I know how you feel about me,” Rose said slowly, thinking it was true. She had been in his head. The affection he felt for her had been so real and glowing and warm. That had to be the truth, not that she would say that word out loud. Why jinx it?

“Do you?” he asked, face blank but eyes glowing with that word she was avoiding.

“Yeah,” she replied infusing her own voice with the word that must not be said too early... 

“Do you though?” 

“Yeah,” she told him and his expression warmed up, his smile crooked and brilliant. “I’ve been inside your mind…” she drawled watching him squirm pleasantly. A thought occurred to her, “Could we maybe do both, sometime? The,” she waved between them for bodies, ”and the,” she tapped her temple.

He turned the perfect shade of crimson. “Rose Tyler! No, that uh, no. Not together,” he whispered, clutching his metaphorical pearls.

She held up the book. “You want to do this and that is too much?”

“We only need one box to stand on and a wall…” he said, eyeing the empty wall longingly.

Rose splashed him. He rolled away from her falling off the chaise. Rose cracked up laughing. He said up giving her a mock glare. “Fine, no wall human sex for you.” he pouted.

“You’re ridiculous! Go get a box. A sturdy one!” she shouted after him as he sprinted away.

**Author's Note:**

> This story is a direct result of all the lovely comments. This was not planned at all in the original arc. So enjoy there are now 2 more planned still... Although the next one might be lightly angsty. I'm trying to keep this as fluffy as possible.


End file.
